“If you’re correct,” said Doyle, “in your belief that it was the Winchester which fired the shot in question.”
Briggs came floating back just then with my drink. He set it on the table in front of me. I thanked him. No one else wanted anything, and he tucked the tray under his arm and floated away.
I shrugged. “Makes sense that it was the Winchester.”
“Nonsense,” said Sir David, and took a sip from his glass. Ignoring me, he said to Doyle and Mrs. Corneille, “It was obviously a poacher who fired the shot. It’s the season. For miles around, every property in Devon is acrawl with purblind peers squinting down the barrels of rusty rifles.”
“It’s the grouse season, you know,” said Doyle. “They’ll be peering down the barrels of shotguns.”
“And Lord Purleigh,” said Mrs. Corneille to Sir David, “has forbidden blood sports on the grounds of Maplewhite.”
I raised my drink and saw through the amber liquid that a scrap of paper had been stuck to the bottom of the glass. Library, fifteen minutes, someone had scrawled across the paper.
The message was easy to read. As usual, there was no ice in the glass.
Looking at Mrs. Corneille, Sir David shrugged comfortably. “Which means that the poaching would be infinitely superior here.” He turned to Doyle. “For every sort of fauna. As I’m sure the poachers are well aware.”
As I set the drink down with my left hand, I used my right to slip the paper from the bottom of the glass. I palmed it, crumpled it into a small damp wad.
“But the Winchester was fired,” said Doyle.
“Perhaps,” said Sir David. “But we have no way of knowing when. Today? Yesterday? Last week sometime?”
I scratched casually at my thigh and I dropped the wad to the flagstones.
Doyle said, “Mr. Beaumont believes that it was fired today.”
“Ah well,” said Sir David, and smiled blandly.
“Mr. Beaumont.” Doyle raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked over at me.
I said, “What about you, Sir David?”
Sir David turned. “I beg your pardon?”
“You mind if I ask you where you were this afternoon?”
“I very much mind,” he said. “I can’t, for the life of me, see that it’s even remotely any of your business.”
“David,” said Mrs. Corneille. “Please. There’s no need to be offensive.”
“It’s not I who’s being offensive, Vanessa. It’s Our American Friend. I put it to you-why on earth should any of us let ourselves be interrogated by some threadbare enquiry agent? After we chat with this lout, shall we run off and bare our souls to the scullery maid?”
“ David,” said Mrs. Corneille.
“Really, Sir David,” said Doyle. “I don’t think-”
“This has all suddenly become very tedious,” Sir David said. He stood up without any hurry. “I believe I shall rest for a bit.”
“ Really, Sir David,” said Doyle. The pink of his face had grown a couple of shades more red, which made the gray of his big mustache seem a couple of shades more white.
“Until dinner, then,” said Sir David, and ambled away.
“My dear Beaumont,” said Doyle, leaning toward me urgently with his face still red, and getting redder. “I am most dreadfully sorry. That was absolutely unforgivable. I’ve half a mind to run after the wretch and give him a damned sound thrashing. By God,” he said, and he opened his eyes wide and bunched his big shoulders as he wrapped his big hands around the arms of his chair, “I believe I will!”
Mrs. Corneille leaned over and put her hand atop Doyle’s. “No, Sir Arthur. Please.”
“It’s okay,” I said to Doyle.
Doyle kept his shoulders bunched, as though he were still planning to leap from the chair. “But he was unconscionably rude.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Everyone’s a little upset today. Don’t worry about it, Sir Arthur.”
Madame Sosostris said, “Mr. Beaumont is correct, Sir Art’ur. T’e Et’eric Vibrations, t’ey are very violet today. Very much so. I sense t’em. You must not to let yourself fall prey to t’ese and become violet in your own self.”
“Yes,” said Doyle. He sat back, plucked the handkerchief from his suit coat pocket, lightly patted it against his wide forehead. Mrs. Corneille sat back, too. I think that everyone sat back.
“Yes,” Doyle repeated, to Madame Sosostris, “you’re right, of course. No violence.” And then, patting his forehead, he said to no one in particular, “What is this country coming to?”
I pulled out my watch.
“Mr. Beaumont,” said Doyle.
I looked over at him.
“I wonder if you and I could have a few words.”
“Sure,” I told him.
Chapter Twenty-two
Doyle and I excused ourselves and walked in through the conservatory door. Doyle was looking for a place to talk. He found one, a small parlor to the right. We slipped in there and he glanced quickly around the room and shut the door. We sat down opposite each other on a pair of love seats. His face had gone back to its normal pink.
“First off,” Doyle said, “I want to apologize again for the manner in which Sir David behaved. It was abominable.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Sir Arthur. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But the man is English. He’s a baronet, Mr. Beaumont. For a so-called gentleman, I must tell you, it was an unforgivable display.”
“I’m not worried about it. You shouldn’t be, either.”
He leaned toward me, wincing slightly. “Whenever I’ve traveled in America, wherever I’ve gone in that remarkable country, I’ve received nothing but the kindliest and most gracious treatment from everyone I met. Virtually everyone. I want you to know that I feel personally embarrassed that this has happened today.”
“You shouldn’t. But thank you, Sir Arthur. You said there was something you wanted to say?”
“Yes. Yes.” He sat back with another small wince. He stuck his hand into his coat pocket, burrowed around for a while, came out with his pipe and tobacco pouch. “D’you mind?”
I shook my head.
“Well, look here,” he said, as he searched for his matches, “did you really mean what you said out there? You genuinely believe that some member of the house party fired that shot?” He fiddled with the pipe.
“It makes sense to me.”
“But I’m afraid that it doesn’t make sense to me, you see.” He got the pipe lit. The smell of burning potato sacks drifted across the room. He stuffed his matches back in one pocket, his tobacco pouch in another. “As I told Houdini earlier today, I simply can’t credit the idea that one of Lord Purleigh’s guests would do such a thing. Not even Sir David.” He puffed at the pipe, looked at me with narrowed eyes through the pale blue streamers of smoke. “I’ve begun to suspect that something very strange, and very sinister, is occurring here at Maplewhite.”
“And what’s that, Sir Arthur?”
He frowned. “I really can’t say as yet. But what I should like to do, with your permission, is attempt to learn something from Running Bear tonight.”
“Excuse me?” From running bare?
“Running Bear. The Spirit Guide summoned by Madame Sosostris. Her control. A Shoshone Indian chieftain who died during your French and Indian War.”
“Running Bear,” I said. “Right.”
“You’ve no objection to my discussing this with him?”
“Not me,” I said. “Ask him whatever you want.”
“Good. I thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, Sir Arthur.” I stood up. “Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to run myself. I need to talk to Harry about something.”
“As I hear it, sir,” said Briggs, “you’re one of the Pinkertons. The American detectives, sir.”
“You hear it right, Mr. Briggs,” I said.
We were in the library, just the two of us, and the door was shut.
Briggs glanced toward the closed door. In only a minute or so I had learned that he could put a pretty good assortment of expressions on his pale narrow face. This one, as he looked back toward the door, was furtive. The next one, when he turned back to me, was politely inquisitive. “As I hear it, sir, you Pinkerton gentlemen have access to, um, certain discretionary funds, shall we say, sir. Money which on occasion you are permitted to, um, dispense to those individuals who come forward to assist you in your enquiries.”